Pusha and Malice live in a world of their own devising. You’re welcome to visit, but don’t try to tell them they’re imagining things.

Illustration by KAWS; Photography by Matt Doyle; Styling by Anoma Ya Whittaker; Story by Damien Scott

In this new age of the industry, where you have artists getting signed off one single, there are rappers just putting more and more music out. There are people on Nah Right that drop like 13 songs a week. You guys seem more…

Malice: Because we care about it, man. We can do everything they’re doing now. I mean, we can put out an album in a week. We can do that. But I wouldn’t be happy with it. I think our songs, our albums, singles, even the mixtapes, everything is handcrafted.

Pusha: Yeah, I think that stuff sucks too.

Malice: [Laughs.]

Pusha: All of that music I’m seeing every fucking day…all these 50,000 mixtapes. With not one gem on it.

Yeah, it makes it very disposable.

Pusha: Come on…You’re ruining it. You’re pissing me off.

Malice: Then making 50 songs, and throwing away 30 that don’t make the album. It’s like, What were you thinking when you were writing those?

Pusha: Stupid! Hey, stupid!

Malice: When we make a track, we loved it from the beginning.

Pusha: Hey, dummy!

That’s a good point.

Pusha: What’s wrong with you stupid? Who works like that?

Malice: What song do you make that you can throw away? What the hell is wrong with you?

Pusha: Unless…

Malice: You knew it was doo-doo.

Pusha: And they are real stupid…

Malice: And frivolous.

Pusha: Pointless, meaningless…

You don’t think it’ll help if you released a song every week?

Malice: I think our fans expect more from us.

Pusha: Yeah.

Malice: I think if we try to do that, they’ll be like, “What the hell is wrong with y’all?” I think they expect more from us.

Pusha: It’s like they wait to see it. And when they see it, they’re expecting fucking pyramids.

What’s the goal? What’s the promised land for you two?

Pusha: Being successful enough. Just having enough success to keep myself and everything around me happy. I don’t know if that comes in a number, I don’t know if that comes in a plaque, I don’t know what it is. If I can keep me and the crew around me happy, stable, and out of jail, then we good.

Do the fans play into that at all?

Malice: Fans are everything. Fans are everything.

Pusha: If they’re satisfied, they can keep everybody else satisfied, happy, and free.

Malice: For me it’s being able to look back at the body of work, and knowing that I stand behind it, being true to myself. The creativity that we have and the artistic value of our music, that’s what keeps us around. We may never skyrocket over the top, but…

Pusha: We sold platinum before. Just not millions and millions and millions. Home // CELEBRITIES // COVER STORY // The Clipse